over 5 billion neurons served

Science Fiction

I’ve heard that SFWA Grandmaster James Gunn will give a keynote speech for the Cushing Library’s Exhibit above. I wish I could be there. After all, for the last 35 years I’ve witnessed some of that “SF & Fantasy” at TAMU. I remember the first time I ever met Jim Gunn–he came down for something and Dr. Kroiter brought him to the SF as Literature class to talk to us. I hadn’t read much of his work at that time but I was a big fan of the TV series The Immortal.

Since then I’ve learned usual lesson. The source material is almost always better.

Brad Denton was a graduate student under him, writing some of his early short fiction in the program. Read his post about meeting Dr. Gunn back in college, “First Contact with a Grand Master.”

Scott Edelman, over on Twitter, pointed out this amazingly awful attack on the great writers of science fiction by David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service.Â It’s not quite James Bond, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but it does have a ring to it.

Anyway, his post, titled Beware of Science Fiction, uses Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut, and Gene Roddenberry, as examples of agnostic or atheistic proponents.Â His descriptions are factual, using quotes from the writers in question.Â After reading every one of the quotes, my reaction is “Right on!” but he seems to see them as, uh, damning.

He finishes with:

Science fiction is intimately associated with Darwinian evolution. Sagan and Asimov, for example, were prominent evolutionary scientists. Sci-fi arose in the late 19th and early 20th century as a product of an evolutionary worldview that denies the Almighty Creator. In fact, evolution IS the pre-eminent science fiction. Beware!

So, I’m guessing that evidence based science is just right out of the picture, for him.

I laughed when I read the informational paragraph at the bottom of the website which includes:

OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR.

In conclusion, I’m making a unilateral deal with him.Â He shouldn’t read ANY Science Fiction and I’ll promise never to read his web site again.

I’m in Chattanooga, Tennessee (the ‘nooga as us hep kids call it) at a combination writer’s retreat and birthday celebration (not mine, but our host’s, Mary Robinette Kowal.) It just so happens that her BD is one day (and fourteen years) after mine.

I was supposed to be the offeeeeeecial photgrapher for the following event but one of the Team Mary’s sous chefs came down sick and I was roped in.

Several different “Interactive Electoral Maps” for the 2008 Smackdown are available online . . . but my favorite is at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/.Â This one allows you to screw with the Electoral College in all sorts of ways, much as you probably did with your Actual College.

The best thing about this map, to me, is that it includes options for splitting up the Electoral Votes of Maine and Nebraska.Â You see, unlike every other state in the Union, Maine and Nebraska do not have a winner-take-all policy regarding their Electoral Votes for President.Â Instead, they use the “Congressional District Method,” in which the popular-vote winner of each Congressional DistrictÂ is awardedÂ one Electoral Vote (just as each district hasÂ one Congressperson), and the state’s overall popular-vote winner is awarded the remaining two Electoral Votes (just as each state has two Senators).

So far, in actual practice, this has never resulted in a split Electoral Vote for either Maine or Nebraska.Â Â But I want to believe that 2008 could be different, particularly in Nebraska.Â For one thing, Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District is home to the University of Nebraska, where support for Senator Obama is reported to be strong . . . and the 2nd District is basically the city of Omaha, which (among other blue-leaning factors) is the home of billionaire, philanthropist, and Obama-supporter Warren Buffett.Â (You can forget about the 3rd District, though.Â They’re red ’til they’re dead.)

I’ve had a lot of fun playing Electoral God with the map as a whole, making swing-states like Ohio and PennsylvaniaÂ swing first one way and then the other.Â But somehow I can never manage to convince myself, even for a make-believe moment, that Florida will ever wind up in the blue column.Â (Comedienne Sarah Silverman thinks there’s a way it could happen, however.)

So, I finished* the revisions to the book last night**, and then I went to sleep. In my dream I had planted trees in my front yard–one or two saplings. I was trying to make sure they got enough water and was very worried about whether they would survive. It was all also very muddy and messy. (This may have something to do with the fact that we were having sewer problems yesterday. Ugh.)

Then I looked around and realized I had several trees in my front yard. And they were big! I had these big beautiful trees and I hadn’t known how quickly they’d grow! But then I got mad because:

I hadn’t planted them the right distance apart (they were in this really haphazard configuration–some crowding each other);

They STILL weren’t getting enough water; and

When I looked more closely I saw they were actually weird looking and kind of ugly, because I had chopped off all these limbs from them. I remember looking at them and thinking, what the hell was I thinking??

As I return to Eat Our Brains after an absence of a few weeks, I’m also announcing the return of my novel LAUGHIN’ BOY as a trade paperback.Â It’s available for preorder from Wheatland Press right this minute.Â The stunning cover art is by Darin Bradley.

LAUGHIN’ BOY was originally published as a limited-edition hardcover by Subterranean Press in 2005.Â It was a gorgeous book, and it sold out . . . but its cover price and small print run meant that a lot of potential readers didn’t see it.Â So I’m beyond delighted that Wheatland Press is now publishing this less-expensive but equally beautiful edition.

Now, I was born long after the first Tintin comic was published. In fact, I believe my parents weren’t born yet (though they were about to be.) But Tintin was indomitable and I read his adventures in college, blessed with roommates who collected the English editions.

So, the last piece of published short fiction I had out was the short story, “The Session” in Terri Windling’s anthology, The Armless Maiden and Other Tales for Childhood’s Survivors back in 1995. This doesn’t count a piece Rory and I co-wrote back in the early 90’s but which appeared in Revolution SF back in 2005. I’ve been (slowly) writing novels instead.

I had a short fiction career at one point (if one can call a career something that amounted to a)nothing even close to a living wage and b) averaging less than one published story a year.) It wasn’t totally unremarkable. I made it onto the final Hugo Ballot twice and the final Nebula Ballot once. I was (at least in my own mind) a hot young turk. All of my sales were to markets considered “professional” by SFWA. I got the odd fan letter. And I got to meet a lot of cool writers and editors.

But now I’m back at it again and I’m having a rough time. I’m not completely hopeless, I think. I sold a story to the new Tor website which helped my self-esteem a bit. But now I’m working on my latest novel and I’m writing it in chunks that I hope to market as short fiction.

Scott McCullar was the rhythm guitarist, frequent lead singer, and often song-writer for the late, somewhat- lamented Los Blues Guys. His song ‘The Element of Fire‘, based on the classic Martha Wells novel of the same name, is one of my favorites, though ‘Elvis is Alive‘ was always a huge crowd pleaser.

After tiring of the madness, the groupies, and the endless, hazy parties of the rock ‘n roll lifestyle, he became a librarian in Houston. But the spotlight called to him, as it does to us all. Here’s his new movie: